AMD shows FreeSync over HDMI at Computex

At present you need DisplayPort for AMD's FreeSync technology but the company is working on a version that works over HDMI. AMD showed off a proof-of-concept at Computex, running their windmill FreeSync demo on a FreeSync-enabled HDMI display. Full details at AnandTech.

The goal here from AMD is very similar to what they did with DisplayPort last year. The company wants to introduce variable refresh support into the HDMI standard, making it a standardized (and common) feature of HDMI. The payoff for AMD and their users would be that getting variable refresh support into HDMI would allow FreeSync to potentially work with many more monitors, as DisplayPort is not found in all monitors whereas HDMI is. This is especially the case in cheaper monitors, which of course make up the bulk of monitor sales.

Because AMD has been working with Realtek on this, it was unknown if other TCON manufacturers would have issues writing firmware. However if variable refresh were implemented into the HDMI standard, then there's no reason to believe it wouldn't eventually be a solved issue. Meanwhile the fact that Realtek is doing this via custom firmware on a standard TCON does technically open up the possibility of flashing existing monitors to enable such functionality, but given the fact that this hasn't happened for DisplayPort monitors, it's unlikely here as well.

Still no word about when they'll finally support FreeSync on multi-GPU setups though. Over a month ago the firm said this feature was not quite ready for launch due to quality assurance issues.